WhiteKnightTwo to fly at Spaceport America groundbreaking

In his speech at the International Space Development Conference in Orlando this morning, Will Whitehorn confirmed some earlier speculation and said that WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) will make its first long-distance flight on June 19 and put in an appearance over Spaceport America during its groundbreaking ceremony that day. The plan is (weather permitting) that WK2 will […]

Virgin Galactic announces engine tests

Virgin Galactic announced this morning that the company has successfully carried out its first full-scale engine tests for SpaceShipTwo. Virgin released a video featuring the tests along with a press release:

Neither the video nor the press release provide much in the way of technical details about the engine tests, other than the engine […]

Wired’s not-so-“exclusive” WK2 video

A post on Wired’s Autopia blog caught my attention yesterday: “Exclusive Video of Virgin Galactic’s Test Flight”. Wired claimed to have obtained “exclusive video of Virgin Galactic’s recent test flight” of WhiteKnightTwo. The video is here:

At first I was impressed that Wired got its hands on what presumably was video from the April […]

Spaceport America launch today

Spaceport America is conducting an “educational” launch this morning of a sounding rocket built by UP Aerospace. The rocket is carrying a number of payloads provided by high schools and colleges in New Mexico, as well as secondary payloads from the Air Force and Celestis. According to the Spaceport America web site there will be […]